With the second half of 2017 just around the corner, small businesses need to focus on their marketing strategies for the second half of the year. This is especially important for retail businesses because it is common knowledge in the retail industry that Christmas displays begin to roll out in August.
Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, released her report on her latest predictions for 2017. While the focus of internet trends is mobile, the focus of business trends has been cyber security. Business owners need pay attention to both so they can grow their businesses while keeping their businesses safe.
The most anticipated internet report of the year
Adweek reported that the annual report by internet expert Mary Meeker is one of the most anticipated reports of the year. The report, which is about 355 pages long, is full of data on the future of the internet and includes topics like smartphone growth, online advertising media, and interactive games.
According to the report, there has been no change in the number of internet users although this number is set to grow by 10 percent over the next year. Social media will grow as well.
Mobile use of YouTube, which was at 30 percent, dropped to 20 percent while Facebook video rose from seven percent to 14 percent. Some of the other findings mentioned in the report included that the sales of smartphones is slowing while adults will spend more time on digital media.
Businesses are discovering the value of content like video for marketing their products and services. Mobile advertising has surpassed TV advertising while internet advertising totals about $73 billion. This includes $43 billion in mobile advertising.
The important takeaways from the report
Business Insider reported that there were five important takeaways from the report that businesses need to be aware of.
The first takeaway was that voice and camera use are overtaking text input as a way to communicate and interact with mobile devices. Voice-based accuracy has improved, and Google had a voice accuracy rate of about 95 percent. While voice assistants accurately identify voice input, contextual understanding of the input is the next hurdle in using voice input.
Cameras are also becoming more accurate in seeing what users see. eSports, which is where individuals or teams play against one another in video games, has surpassed traditional sports. As eSports becomes more popular, it grew 40 percent from 2015 to 2016, and there were 161 million viewers in 2016. This is up from 115 million viewers in 2015.
The market is also now primed for digital health with wearables growing to 102 million, up from 82 million in 2015. Health apps have also grown, and one-fourth of all Americans now wear one.